The main consideration here is that the WD My Passport runs entirely from a USB connection to your computer, so it's great for taking on the road with you and for quickly swapping between different desktops and laptops. Neither one of these models is going to let you down, which makes the decision of choosing between them a little bit easier – there's no 'wrong' choice really. WD My Passport vs Seagate Backup Plus: verdictĪs we said at the outset, these are two of the best external hard drives that you can get hold of at the moment – whichever one you buy, you're going to be getting reliable external storage, fast transfer speeds, and plenty of room for your files and folders. Both these drives come with basic backup software you can use to help you transfer files over from other locations, either included on the drive itself or available to download for free via the Western Digital and Seagate websites. Hook up a smartphone or a tablet, and you can charge them from the power coming through the Seagate model, something which you can't do with the WD My Passport.īoth these drives come with USB 3.0 ports, so in terms of connecting up to your desktop or laptop computer there's not much to choose between them. In the case of our WD My Passport vs Seagate Backup Plus comparison, the read and write speeds seem to be broadly the same, but you can get more space with the Seagate drive: it maxes out at a massive 14TB of capacity rather than the 5TB maximum offered by the WD unit.Īnother advantage of a bigger, separately powered hard drive is that you can run other devices off it – and the Seagate Backup Plus comes with two USB-A ports on the front that let you connect up other accessories, like flash drives or card readers. In terms of portability, the Western Digital model wins out.Įxternal drives requiring their own power supply have advantages too though: they're typically faster, and offer greater capacities. Perhaps the key difference between the WD My Passport and the Seagate Backup Plus external hard drives is that the WD model is USB powered – so you can just plug it into a laptop or desktop and get going – whereas the Seagate drive needs a separate mains power supply in addition to the connection to your computer.

Seagate backup plus hub software